Love and Other Stories Part 10

As soon as the sound of Groholsky's steps had died away and the door in the hall creaked, Bugrov leapt up, and after making two or three rounds of the drawing-room, strolled up to his wife. The kittenish face puckered up and began blinking its eyes as though expecting a slap. Her husband went up to her, and with a pale, distorted face, with arms, head, and shoulders shaking, stepped on her dress and knocked her knees with his.

"If, you wretched creature," he began in a hollow, wailing voice, "you let him come here once again, I'll. . . . Don't let him dare to set his foot. . . . I'll kill you. Do you understand? A-a-ah . . . worthless creature, you shudder! Fil-thy woman!"

Bugrov seized her by the elbow, shook her, and flung her like an indiarubber ball towards the window. . . .

"Wretched, vulgar woman! you have no shame!"

She flew towards the window, hardly touching the floor with her feet, and caught at the curtains with her hands.

"Hold your tongue," shouted her husband, going up to her with flas.h.i.+ng eyes and stamping his foot.

She did hold her tongue, she looked at the ceiling, and whimpered while her face wore the expression of a little girl in disgrace expecting to be punished.

"So that's what you are like! Eh? Carrying on with a fop! Good! And your promise before the altar? What are you? A nice wife and mother.

Hold your tongue!"

And he struck her on her pretty supple shoulder. "Hold your tongue, you wretched creature. I'll give you worse than that! If that scoundrel dares to show himself here ever again, if I see you-- listen!--with that blackguard ever again, don't ask for mercy!

I'll kill you, if I go to Siberia for it! And him too. I shouldn't think twice about it! You can go, I don't want to see you!"

Bugrov wiped his eyes and his brow with his sleeve and strode about the drawing-room, Liza sobbing more and more loudly, twitching her shoulders and her little turned up nose, became absorbed in examining the lace on the curtain.

"You are crazy," her husband shouted. "Your silly head is full of nonsense! Nothing but whims! I won't allow it, Elizaveta, my girl!

You had better be careful with me! I don't like it! If you want to behave like a pig, then . . . then out you go, there is no place in my house for you! Out you pack if. . . . You are a wife, so you must forget these dandies, put them out of your silly head! It's all foolishness! Don't let it happen again! You try defending yourself! Love your husband! You have been given to your husband, so you must love him. Yes, indeed! Is one not enough? Go away till . . . . Torturers!"

Bugrov paused; then shouted:

"Go away I tell you, go to the nursery! Why are you blubbering, it is your own fault, and you blubber! What a woman! Last year you were after Petka Totchkov, now you are after this devil. Lord forgive us! . . . Tfoo, it's time you understood what you are! A wife! A mother! Last year there were unpleasantnesses, and now there will be unpleasantnesses. . . . Tfoo!"

Bugrov heaved a loud sigh, and the air was filled with the smell of sherry. He had come back from dining and was slightly drunk . . . .

"Don't you know your duty? No! . . . you must be taught, you've not been taught so far! Your mamma was a gad-about, and you . . . you can blubber. Yes! blubber away. . . ."

Bugrov went up to his wife and drew the curtain out of her hands.

"Don't stand by the window, people will see you blubbering. . . .

Don't let it happen again. You'll go from embracing to worse trouble.

You'll come to grief. Do you suppose I like to be made a fool of?

And you will make a fool of me if you carry on with them, the low brutes. . . . Come, that's enough. . . . Don't you. . . . Another time. . . . Of course I . . Liza . . . stay. . . ."

Bugrov heaved a sigh and enveloped Liza in the fumes of sherry.

"You are young and silly, you don't understand anything. . . . I am never at home. . . . And they take advantage of it. You must be sensible, prudent. They will deceive you. And then I won't endure it. . . . Then I may do anything. . . . Of course! Then you can just lie down, and die. I . . . I am capable of doing anything if you deceive me, my good girl. I might beat you to death. . . . And . . . I shall turn you out of the house, and then you can go to your rascals."

And Bugrov (_horribile dictu_) wiped the wet, tearful face of the traitress Liza with his big soft hand. He treated his twenty-year-old wife as though she were a child.

"Come, that's enough. . . . I forgive you. Only G.o.d forbid it should happen again! I forgive you for the fifth time, but I shall not forgive you for the sixth, as G.o.d is holy. G.o.d does not forgive such as you for such things."

Bugrov bent down and put out his s.h.i.+ning lips towards Liza's little head. But the kiss did not follow. The doors of the hall, of the dining-room, of the parlour, and of the drawing-room all slammed, and Groholsky flew into the drawing-room like a whirlwind. He was pale and trembling. He was flouris.h.i.+ng his arms and crus.h.i.+ng his expensive hat in his hands. His coat fluttered upon him as though it were on a peg. He was the incarnation of acute fever. When Bugrov saw him he moved away from his wife and began looking out of the other window. Groholsky flew up to him, and waving his arms and breathing heavily and looking at no one, he began in a shaking voice:

"Ivan Petrovitch! Let us leave off keeping up this farce with one another! We have deceived each other long enough! It's too much! I cannot stand it. You must do as you like, but I cannot! It's hateful and mean, it's revolting! Do you understand that it is revolting?"

Groholsky spluttered and gasped for breath.

"It's against my principles. And you are an honest man. I love her!

I love her more than anything on earth! You have noticed it and . . . it's my duty to say this!"

"What am I to say to him?" Ivan Petrovitch wondered.

"We must make an end of it. This farce cannot drag on much longer!

It must be settled somehow."

Groholsky drew a breath and went on:

"I cannot live without her; she feels the same. You are an educated man, you will understand that in such circ.u.mstances your family life is impossible. This woman is not yours, so . . . in short, I beg you to look at the matter from an indulgent humane point of view. . . . Ivan Petrovitch, you must understand at last that I love her--love her more than myself, more than anything in the world, and to struggle against that love is beyond my power!"

"And she?" Bugrov asked in a sullen, somewhat ironical tone.

"Ask her; come now, ask her! For her to live with a man she does not love, to live with you is . . . is a misery!"

"And she?" Bugrov repeated, this time not in an ironical tone.

"She . . . she loves me! We love each other, Ivan Petrovitch! Kill us, despise us, pursue us, do as you will, but we can no longer conceal it from you. We are standing face to face--you may judge us with all the severity of a man whom we . . . whom fate has robbed of happiness!"

Bugrov turned as red as a boiled crab, and looked out of one eye at Liza. He began blinking. His fingers, his lips, and his eyelids twitched. Poor fellow! The eyes of his weeping wife told him that Groholsky was right, that it was a serious matter.

"Well!" he muttered. "If you. . . . In these days. . . . You are always. . . ."

"As G.o.d is above," Groholsky shrilled in his high tenor, "we understand you. Do you suppose we have no sense, no feeling? I know what agonies I am causing you, as G.o.d's above! But be indulgent, I beseech you! We are not to blame. Love is not a crime. No will can struggle against it. . . . Give her up to me, Ivan Petrovitch! Let her go with me! Take from me what you will for your sufferings.

Take my life, but give me Liza. I am ready to do anything. . . .

Come, tell me how I can do something to make up in part at least!

To make up for that lost happiness, I can give you other happiness.

I can, Ivan Petrovitch; I am ready to do anything! It would be base on my part to leave you without satisfaction. . . . I understand you at this moment."

Bugrov waved his hand as though to say, 'For G.o.d's sake, go away.'

His eyes began to be dimmed by a treacherous moisture--in a moment they would see him crying like a child.

"I understand you, Ivan Petrovitch. I will give you another happiness, such as. .h.i.therto you have not known. What would you like? I have money, my father is an influential man. . . . Will you? Come, how much do you want?"

Bugrov's heart suddenly began throbbing. . . . He clutched at the window curtains with both hands. . . .

"Will you have fifty thousand? Ivan Petrovitch, I entreat you. . . .

It's not a bribe, not a bargain. . . . I only want by a sacrifice on my part to atone a little for your inevitable loss. Would you like a hundred thousand? I am willing. A hundred thousand?"

My G.o.d! Two immense hammers began beating on the perspiring temples of the unhappy Ivan Petrovitch. Russian sledges with tinkling bells began racing in his ears. . . .

"Accept this sacrifice from me," Groholsky went on, "I entreat you!

You will take a load off my conscience. . . . I implore you!"

My G.o.d! A smart carriage rolled along the road wet from a May shower, pa.s.sed the window through which Bugrov's wet eyes were looking. The horses were fine, spirited, well-trained beasts. People in straw hats, with contented faces, were sitting in the carriage with long fis.h.i.+ng-rods and bags. . . . A schoolboy in a white cap was holding a gun. They were driving out into the country to catch fish, to shoot, to walk about and have tea in the open air. They were driving to that region of bliss in which Bugrov as a boy--the barefoot, sunburnt, but infinitely happy son of a village deacon--had once raced about the meadows, the woods, and the river banks. Oh, how fiendishly seductive was that May! How happy those who can take off their heavy uniforms, get into a carriage and fly off to the country where the quails are calling and there is the scent of fresh hay.